Jeffrey Epstein found dead in cell

Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced American millionaire who was facing federal sex trafficking charges, died by suicide Friday night in his jail cell.

His body was discovered at 07:30 local time (11:30 GMT) on Saturday at a facility in New York.

He was reportedly on suicide watch following an earlier incident in which he was found injured in his cell.

Epstein, 66, was arrested in July of this year for alleged sex trafficking of minor girls at his Upper East Side mansion and his home in Palm Beach, Florida. Some of the charges date back to the early 2000s.

He had pleaded not guilty to sex trafficking and conspiracy charges and was being held without bail.

Last month, shortly after he was denied bail, he was found semi-conscious in his cell with injuries to his neck.

He was treated at a nearby hospital, reports say, before being returned to the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York.

The facility is widely considered to be one of the most secure in the country.

Epstein’s death comes a day after hundreds of pages of court documents were released that revealed new allegations against him and some of his associates.

His alleged crimes were thrown back into the spotlight amid renewed scrutiny of the plea deal Epstein reached with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Miami in 2007, led by then-U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta.

A non-prosecution agreement allowed Epstein, a hedge-fund manager, to plead guilty to two state charges and avoid federal charges for an allegedly broad pattern of similar sexual misconduct. He would serve just 13 months of an 18-month sentence in county jail in Florida.